


and this wasteland is yours

by rohesia



Series: just a different kind of wasteland [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: First part is Liam centric, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Second part is Theo centric, Set during 6x20, Shakespeare Quotations, just the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25560220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohesia/pseuds/rohesia
Summary: Liam used to envy his control.For Theo it’s probably just habit, something that’s been drilled into him since he was nine. It was biology and a twisted design. Even when he’d sacrificed himself at the hospital -here, right here- running towards the Ghost Riders,being the bait, Liam had heard his heart beating from inside the elevator, and it’d been almost calm, determined, if a little surprised, a few beats messing up the otherwise steady rhythm, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done.Now it feels like it’s going to burst if Theo doesn’t let go, but he’s still managing, and Liam doesn’t envy him anymore. Letting control take over must be as exhausting as letting anger rage inside. Just a different kind of wasteland.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Series: just a different kind of wasteland [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853710
Comments: 25
Kudos: 125





	and this wasteland is yours

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ideal sequel to "and this wasteland is my land", which is set during ep 6 and 7 of season 6. This one is just... more intense, I guess. You don't necessarily need to read the first one to read this one, I only reference it in passing and it shouldn't spoil the experience if you don't.
> 
> Spaeaking of experience... If you want the _full_ experience you might want to listen to these two songs:
> 
> Oceans by Seafret  
> this is me trying by Taylor Swift (just... trust me on this one) (EDIT: also epiphany, oh my god)
> 
> I preemptively apologize for any possible mistake. Italy is literally on fire right now (not _literally _literally) and my brain is coming out of my ears.__  
>  Enjoy.

**and this wasteland is yours**

_ Liam _

i.

His rage is chaotic, aimless, unrelenting. But it’s essentially a part of him, so when it hits, the whole system breaks down and it takes him a while to get everything under control in the aftermath: violent trembling, heart beating an angry song against his ribs, teeth rattling inside his head, thoughts racing like wild horses trying to catch up with his clashing emotions, breathing coming in short bursts of air, then slowly regulating to match his fists clasping and unclasping.

Anger doesn’t need to be sly to take over him, Liam doesn’t really need convincing: he lets it do its thing, not because it’s easier. But most of the time it just feels like any other bodily function and it’s not like he can shut down his heart or his lymphatic system. Doesn’t make it any less ugly.

It starts like rain pattering against a glass - a little too hard to be soothing. It’s annoying and he can’t ignore it, it demands his attention, and when it has it, the rain turns into a downpour and Liam steps right into it, letting it soak him entirely. It doesn’t feel good or refreshing or liberating, but there’s no shelter, his mind is a wasteland and there’s nothing for miles. Nothing can protect him, nothing is safe, so he fights it the only way he knows how, and he screams right back at the rain. 

That’s how he explained it to his therapist once and she quoted King Lear at him. Unhelpfully. 

ii.

The hospital itself resembles a wasteland more than ever, now that it’s emptied out, Liam thinks, as he stands alone in front of the opened doors of the elevator, stuck from one of the hunters flying into it at some point. Liam finds Theo’s black beanie in a corner and it doesn’t seem real that they’d both come out of there only a few hours earlier, fangs out, eyes flaring and bodies hardening and heating up because of the shift.

The softness of it on his fingertips feels like a wrong note, out of tune in the eerie, piercing quiet that’s gradually descending upon the hospital, as the others’ voices and steps peter out, either to go home and rest or, like Liam had heard Stiles announce, to find an open cafe and go into a food-induced coma. 

Liam hadn’t been able to follow them, his limbs still straining against the need to move again, danger gone but its echo still lingering and making his joints snap every few minutes, his head turning anxiously and his eyes flaring and his hearing stretching out at any hint of movement. He’d almost punched a stash of wobbly papers as they’d crumbled from the nurses station and onto the floor, finally giving in to gravity. 

Nothing moves for the next five minutes, give or take, but the still too close sound of bullets - countless, cases littering the floors still, mixed with blood and dust - haunts him and makes his already healed leg stiffen as he remembers the sudden, stinging pain reverberating through the rest of his body in waves, as he’d tumbled onto the floor, Theo alongside him. 

He’d felt the bullet going through his calf, his skin stitching itself back together not long after, not waiting for his mind to catch up with the fact that  _ he’d been shot. _ The pain and the blood disappeared while he’d been too busy fighting, deafened by the roar of other countless bullets being fired at them, choking on the stench of fear and hatred and anger. His own included. 

iii.

Liam doesn’t know what he’d smelled as he’d watched Theo help Gabe die a painless death. Death, obviously, and fear - regular fear, making his eyes sting and his body freeze rather than surge forward, to attack. The rest had stubbornly clung to Theo’s body, hiding itself under his clothes, fading away like his black veins almost immediately.

Theo’s back had stayed hunched for a long time after Gabe’s eyes had closed, his body giving itself to the stillness of death.  _ This is going to haunt me, make my nightmares worse than ever _ , Liam had thought, and he’d felt resentment swelling up. 

He doesn’t know what to do with it. 

iv.

A sob starts travelling up his throat, originating from his stomach like it’s being punched out of him, when finally, with some sort of sick relief, he smells something from a few feet away, coming up the stairs, steps unsure, he notices. He turns around just as Theo makes it up the stairs, his nose having recognized and begun curling around Theo’s scent immediately, but his brain still battling against the evidence as it plays out, with a clarity that hurts, an onslaught of snapshots showing Theo’s distant and retreating back. 

He’d left the hospital at least two hours ago and Liam, stunned, bitter, fear and anger still oozing out of his skin even as the magic of the Anuk-ite dissolved, had done nothing to stop him. Hadn’t been able to. 

He’d seen Mason leave with Corey, he’d seen Scott and Stiles and the others come up those same stairs and then leave, together with deputies and other unknown faces, carrying out the bodies. He’d seen everyone leave, assuring them “Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute, I just need…” and they had nodded, understanding, if a little hesitant, _ sure, of course, see you later, pass by Scott’s house when you _ … 

Only Scott had stayed back a minute longer, his hand finding its way to Liam’s shoulder and squeezing, reassuringly, trying to offer comfort. Then, unsatisfied, he’d pulled Liam into a hug, brief but fierce, and Liam had closed his eyes against Scott’s chest, and he’d wanted to leave with him, but the hospital had devoured that thought, still hungry. 

So Liam had stayed, a sacrifice to this undying force, voracious and dark, that had nothing to do with the Anuk-ite, but that had been eating at him his entire life. It closes its teeth around his mind and takes, takes, takes, leaving anger behind.

v.

Everyone had left. But Theo had  _ left _ , not a word, his shoulders telling a different story. Liam had almost missed him, only a glimpse of dark grey and brown hair disappearing down the stairs. Could have been anyone. 

No, it couldn’t.

He tells himself the burning ball of yarn he’d felt unraveling in his suddenly tight chest, leaving trails of something (hurt, disbelief, chaos) in its wake as it’d rolled, thread winding around his veins and chest and throat, had just been caused by the echoes of his own words resounding in the empty halls of the hospital:  _ he’s my responsibility. _ And he’d let him go. 

Then he’d remembered, plunging down the last few weeks, in reverse, about a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him forwards, bullets flying around them; a body following him and reacting to his every movement, anticipating them and moving with him like they’d been possessed by an identical drive; arms closing around his chest and dragging him back, a furious heartbeat crashing into his back; an unmovable presence standing behind him, surging forwards and wrapping itself around the burning coals of his rage like a blanket, suffocating it; fists knocking him out and opening quickly to catch him as he’d been falling unconscious, anger surging through him and spilling out desperately; a voice through the phone saying  _ yeah, I can drive you there, whatever. _

vi.

At some point their roles have begun to shift, and it’s not like Liam deliberately refused to notice or took it for granted, it’s just. It’d just happened, like water naturally adjusting to its container or fire burning through everything without waiting for permission. 

Theo’s eyes are inspecting the place, looking for something or intentionally wandering, landing everywhere except on Liam, like the sound of Liam’s heart, his smell, which must be making his head spin right now, and the instinctive pull he must feel are threatening his composure, or what little he can quickly contrive. 

But it’s only for a few seconds, because he finds Liam just as Liam takes a step forward, unaware of his legs moving until Theo’s eyes lock with his own and the sound of bullets start again in his mind, making his heart surge and his scent spike up in an impossible mix of dread and relief. 

He swallows it all down, focusing on Theo’s advancing figure and regulating the beating of his heart, even though he feels like there aren’t enough suns and moons and truths in the whole universe to stop the slight, ill-conceived gasp that leaves his lip and the stinging of fangs pricking at him gums, when his eyes find the bullet-shaped hole in Theo’s shirt.  _ They’d been shot at.  _ That had happened. And now it was over. Or was it.

The beating of Theo’s heart sounds equally deceitful, but not like he’s trying to trick Liam, more like he’s trying to trick himself. His face morphs into a cracked mask, beams of light shining through and telling Liam… exactly nothing. He wants to punch it away suddenly, make it crack entirely, look at Theo and read him like an open book. Shocked, he realizes he can’t even read himself, and he’s angry all over again. 

vii.

“That’s mine,” Theo says then, eyeing Liam’s hands, and Liam is grateful because the three mundane words put his spiraling thoughts into a deadlock. Then he blinks,  _ what _ , and the soft fabric of Theo’s beanie makes sense of that statement. 

“Oh,” he starts, raising his arms and looking quizzically at the piece of cotton and polyester like it just manifested itself in his hands and not like he’s been clinging to it for the last ten minutes. “Yeah, found it in the elevator…” he continues, as he hands it over, like he’d always meant to, only waiting for Theo to come back, the weight of it suddenly too much for him, “You should wash it,” he adds, all coherent thought abandoning him. 

“Thanks.”

His anger nibs at him like a confused puppy, trying to remind him of something important, but all Liam can focus on is the equally dazed expression painted on Theo’s face. And everything is so fragile all of a sudden he can’t even breathe without worrying he might crumble down and take the world with him. 

He can’t breathe because Theo is thinking the exact same thing and he doesn’t know what it means, so he just waits for Theo to move and just… bring it all down around them. 

The extra second it takes Theo to move forward and retrieve its beanie lets reality finally blow a hole into the paralyzing stillness surrounding the hospital like a huge bubble, and the sob that Liam had felt erupting from his stomach pours out and turns into laughter. That’s also out of tune, like the fabric trapped between his fingers and Theo’s, connecting them to one another. The world comes crashing down,  _ finally _ .

Liam doesn’t let go as his shoulders shake, actually shake, with laughter. It’s a panic attack, probably, but it feels more like he’s been just injected with some psychotropic substance, his body seemingly light, the only hint of gravity stored in Theo’s beanie, which now feels like an anchor stopping him from flying away in every direction. So he doesn’t let go, and neither does Theo. They wait it out.

Nothing matches up, not the jagged pieces of his soul wedged into one another forcibly, recomposing themselves as he tries to make sense of whatever feeling he’s been trying to push back, not the words that come out of his mouth and the strained lines of his face. 

He doesn’t know the dull pain radiating from his chest, bruising his ribs as it wages a war inside him; he doesn’t recognize the force pulling at his arms, wanting to take over and drag him towards an unknown destination, just like he doesn’t know what to make of the sobs that make his body shudder. 

viii.

He doesn’t realize he’s buried his face into Theo’s neck, hand still holding onto the beanie, but also grabbing at Theo’s chest and letting the shuddering echo of his heartbeat slip through the spaces between his fingers, lulling him through his panic, until his brain and his nose lines up again and a familiar, calming, overwhelming scent fills him up to the brim, coursing through him like morphine.

Theo has barely moved, save for the two fingers hooked into the hem of Liam’s shirt and his head, bent just enough Liam can feel the point of Theo’s nose brush his hair, like that’s all he’s going to let himself have. 

Liam used to envy his control.

For Theo it’s probably just habit, something that’s been drilled into him since he was nine. It was biology and a twisted design. Even when he’d sacrificed himself at the hospital -  _ here, right here -  _ running towards the Ghost Riders,  _ being the bait, _ Liam had heard his heart beating from inside the elevator, and it’d been almost calm, determined, if a little surprised, a few beats messing up the otherwise steady rhythm, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. 

Now it feels like it’s going to burst if Theo doesn’t let go, but he’s still managing, and Liam doesn’t envy him anymore. Letting control take over must be as exhausting as letting anger rage inside. Just a different kind of wasteland. 

And maybe it’s the sudden realization that kills the struggle, letting every piece into its rightful place again. If feels like a long - weeks, maybe months - time coming, but it’s finally taking shape and it’s terrifying in its simplicity, maybe because it’s subtle and unexpected, like a thief only stealing that one mug you never use or someone moving the couch only an inch to the right, not enough to elicit any real suspicion. 

ix.

On a normal day, what Theo makes him feel is annoyed. Not angry. Not full of rage. Not lost and helpless in the wasteland that is his mind.  _ Annoyed _ . And annoyance is flimsy, trivial, but still enough to make his head tick and his hands clench into fists, ready to connect with a nose or a jaw. Something. Anything. 

It taps against the glass of his mind like little stones being thrown by an impatient lover, and he just wants to sleep, but now he needs to get up and open the window and climb out and just scream and kick at the bastard because  _ really I just need to fucking sleep. _

But he never noticed, not until now, that it’s not storming outside and that he’s not screaming helplessly at the sky and that there’s someone just… listening to him scream and looking at him with an exasperated if fond look on his face. He hadn’t  _ seen _ it.

As he picks it all apart, annoyance, anger, shock and  _ want _ , he just needs to pull back, apologize, push him away, lose himself in the sound of his heart beating to a new, frightening rhythm that matches Theo’s, he wants to yell at him and breathe him in until he’s sure nothing could ever take his scent away from him. Or maybe it’s already too late for that.

x.

And then Theo speaks, like Liam’s unexpected break down has let something come undone inside him, everything rushing out like water from a broken dam, and if Liam wasn’t holding onto Theo, head still buried in his shirt, he’d be swept away by the barrage. 

No, he’s been speaking for a while but Liam must have tuned everything except their heartbeats out, so he only catches the last part, the words he’s missed making themselves known in the way Theo’s fingers have started up from the hem of Liam’s shirt, the palm of his hand now mindlessly seeking more, coming to rest on Liam’s back, nails drawing a path of goosebumps in their wake and their pressure pushing their bodies closer together, chest to chest, legs tangled. 

Theo’s lips come resting against Liam’s temples as his words come rushing out and Liam leans into the touch, listening and feeling Theo’s intoxicating scent seeping into his skin, where it belongs. 

  
  


_ Theo _

i.

His words come out in a rush he can’t control and he tells Liam everything, not like he would like, maybe, but no one could fault him for stumbling through his confession. Because that’s what it is. 

ii.

Gabe dies in his arms, so to speak. Just like Josh, just like Tracy, except when he stands up Theo doesn’t feel a sick rush of power coursing through his veins, he feels emptied out. 

He’d approached Gabe’s dying body as if he were in a trance, shoulder still hurting from where he’d been shot -  _ by Gabe himself - _ and his mind a conflicting battlefield of impulses shooting each other down, leaving just one simple notion behind: this stupid kid was going to die, not even the safe, enveloping numbness of fear and hatred (now that -- Theo had been able to perceive it -- the Anuk-ite was dead) shielding him from the categorical knowledge that yes, he was bleeding out and hurting and no one could stop it or reverse it. 

He’d kneeled in front of Gabe, Tara’s voice resounding in his head, her silhouette a permanent presence in the corner of his eye, and he’d reached out, instinctively, because maybe he could do something. Not much. Maybe nothing. Gabe’s arm had been still warm, trembling against his fingers.

_ He’s dying, he’s dying. He was just shooting at us and now he’s dying. _

The notion wouldn’t have moved him a year ago, before Kira’s sword had opened up the skinwalkers prison beneath his feet, manifesting his dead sister, leaping out from the ground and almost dutifully dragging him under, everyone deaf to his pleadings. He’d deserved it, probably, hasn’t made peace with the fact yet, unable to when a simple thought is enough to let the earth swallow him back up, when Tara is still here, her hands just a breath away, reminding him:  _ you’re coming back. _

He doesn’t know if Gabe deserves it, but Gabe doesn’t have a choice anymore, used them all up, he can just die and no sword, _ no Liam, _ can bring him back and let him wrestle with the guilt and the self-hatred, so all Theo can do to compensate for it, to stop his heart from pounding out of his chest, screaming  _ that could have been you _ , is take his pain.

Gabe is dead before the black darkening Theo’s veins can fully fade out, before he can register the dull feeling of the boy’s pain, melting away with his own. 

iii.

And then it’s really over. Or he wishes it was. Monroe makes it out of the school, leaving death behind and possibly ahead. Scott and the others drive over to the hospital and the humans that need assistance are delivered to Melissa McCall’s capable hands, while the supernaturals - the label leaving a bitter taste on Theo’s tongue as he thinks it - all come together, either hugging it out or trading meaningful looks, silence heavy over their heads. No one feels like celebrating, not while the floor is littered with bodies, both inside the hospital and out. 

Theo doesn’t feel like anything. He feels a sort of numb, nauseous lightness taking hold of his body as the fear caused by the Anuk-ite evaporates. He’d noticed its effect, but now that it’s gone he feels it even more clearly and his throat closes up.

He wonders what Liam must be feeling, images from the accident at the zoo storming his mind. Almost as if on cue, Nolan appears at his side, his scent barely changing --  _ kid must be freaking out more than I am -- _ as he takes in Theo’s presence and his breath catches in his throat. 

“Hey,” Theo offers, more for Nolan’s benefit than his own. Why he’s making life or death easier for these assholes is a thought he doesn’t want to examine anymore tonight. Or ever, possibly.

“I… uhm,” Nolan offers back, eloquently. 

Theo isn’t sure he wants to stick around long enough to see the kid mumble himself to death, so he almost walks away, only stopping because Nolan grabs his arm with both hands, colour draining from his face as both he and Theo see the afterimage of Gabe’s death superimposed on their linked arms. But that must heighten Nolan’s brittle resolve.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says “For what you… You didn’t have to. Not after what he… we. Not after what we did.” 

Theo stares at the cut decorating Nolan’s forehead, barely hidden by his hair and still smelling like blood and disinfectant. The rest of his body smells like Gabe and Theo wonders if Nolan can smell it as well. He thinks a lot of things in the few seconds it takes him to decide that no, he’s not going to have a break down over someone thanking him possibly for the first time in his life. 

Not even Liam… But Liam doesn’t count. Liam never means what he says and never says what he means. Not to him. He’s painfully honest in other ways. Theo just reciprocates. Sometimes it’s the other way around.  _ Anyway.  _

“Didn’t he beat you senseless before I got here?” Theo would eat both his shoes when what he just said plays back in his mind once, twice, three times, but Nolan’s reaction is more contained than his own, which is telling. His eyes go a little vacant, then he blinks twice, rapid, and just comes back to himself and the present, because he can.

“Yeah,” he says, body a rigid line of grief and something else, harder and darker “he did.”

Theo nods. He understands, possibly from still feeling Gabe’s pain lighting up his veins. 

iv.

Nolan disappears as fast as he’d come into view, almost walking into Liam as he turns around and makes for the stairs, eyeing the elevator with a haunted look on his face as he takes in the passed out hunter -- he isn’t dead, though he’s barely alive, Theo registers, but Nolan probably thinks he is -- lying in front of the doors. 

Liam follows his gaze and when Nolan disappears down the stairs he looks over at Theo, heart rate speeding up as he clears his throat to cover it up. Failing. 

Theo wishes he could fail as well, but he’s not dragging Liam away from firing rifles, at the last possible moment, so this time, as much as he’d like to let himself feel something, he tunes it all out and numbs his heart to the pain, the hope, the hunger. 

Even as he sees them reflected back in Liam’s eyes, because he’s got issues, but he’s not blind. He just wishes self-deprecating jokes could get him through this, but somehow he doubts it. He’s not Stiles.

He can stop his heart from giving him away, hope his smell is already as messed up as it can get to let anyone get a read on him, but his eyes are another story.

He should rip them out. Worked for Scott, anyway.  _ Stop _ , he orders.

“I’m so sick of this hospital,” Liam murmurs, for want of something better. 

Theo still manages to read into it whatever Liam’s mind had been trying to weave, threads coming together and undone too quickly. But, as far as euphemisms go, Theo can’t say he disagrees. Still, he’d take the Ghost Riders over human hatred and fear any day. 

He remembers getting erased and he remembers Liam coming to find him after the chaos. 

His eyes hadn’t carried the same clarity and intensity he detects right now, but even then he could say, with a pang, that something had irrevocably shifted in their relationship. Then Liam had offered him his guest room again, not an ounce of self-preservation in his bones, and Theo had declined, “I don’t trust you not to handcuff me again or some other weird shit,” and Liam had scoffed, then nodded, “If you change your mind…”.

He’d smelled like disappointment and confusion. 

But Theo’d had too many questions sitting on the back of his throat and making his tongue burn, urging to move and utter them. Questions like  _ what the hell am I going to do now, why did you save me, why did I save you, why did we keep lying and lying all night and proving ourselves wrong like it’s some sort of sick game where you only win by losing. _ Those same questions still ring in his ears tonight.

_ I’m not dying for you.  _

He would have lost all too gladly. Maybe just a hint of sadness since it would have meant not being able to play again and torture himself in the aftermath. 

He wishes Liam would just ask him and maybe he’d tell the truth, but it’s just a way to soften the actual truth, that he’s been behaving like a coward for months, using guilt as a shield and an easy excuse. And Liam deserves better than that. 

“Are you okay?” Liams asks instead, then winces. “Are you gonna be okay?” he rephrases, answering the first question himself. That makes something tighten in Theo’s chest, the use of the future tense unveiling too many implications, possibilities, all of which Theo is going to snuff out, except one, the familiar one. 

The easy one.

“Yeah, I think so,” he lies. 

Either Liam thinks he’s just not ready to talk or he’s just as good at Theo at this lying game, because after a beat he nods again and gives him a tight smile, something so affected it looks incongruous on his honest face. He can hide lies in his voice, but he can’t force his face to do the same. And honestly, if he could Theo’s life would be so much easier.

He can’t stop himself.

“Are you?”  _ Gonna be okay. _

His heart does skip a beat this time, traitorous and loud like a bomb going off in the middle of a church, and if Liams senses it, at least he doesn’t show it, probably because his heart did the same and the noises overlapped. 

“I guess,” Liam replies, unsure, eyes going vacant like Nolan’s had. But Liam doesn’t return to the present and Theo can feel him bend inwards more and more, losing himself to something between anguish and dread. 

And Malia, bless her, picks that exact moment to grab Liam and pull him into a hug, like she’s been doing with every other member of the pack for the last few minutes. She mostly ignores Theo, granting him a truce and a lingering look when she lets go of Liam. 

Then she thinks better of it, smelling something’s off, and Theo nods at her, trying to convey to her as much as he can  _ “please make that stop, I can’t,” _ and Malia seems to understand, because she passes an arm around Liam’s shoulder and she starts telling him something, maybe Scott wants to talk to you or Melissa wants to check everything’s okay. 

It seems to work, because Liam follows her, meekly, still in a daze, and Theo takes that as his cue to slip out. 

_ Coward, coward, coward. _

v.

He feels Liam’s eyes on the back of his neck as he disappears down the stairs, and his heart explodes.

vi.

He makes it to his truck just as the Sheriff slides out of his car, followed closely by Parrish, and whatever must be showing on Theo’s face freezes them both before they can stop him, question him, arrest him for something and bring him back inside. 

Theo doesn’t wait for them to make up their minds and unlocks the truck, tumbles into his seat as his legs give out and then steels himself, breathing in and out once, twice, while everything falls into silence and he regains full control of his body. 

He builds a fence around that part of his mind that can’t seem to stop clinging to Liam’s scent and his haunted look, and he goes numb. 

He’s a chimera, he was built for this, and he may be ordinary and a failure and heartless and something to erase and a coward, but the part of his brain that has kept him alive all these years refuses to betray him right now and it coldly takes the lead, ignites the car, pulls out of the parking space and drives him away, away, away, until he can’t hear or smell anyone anymore.

He doesn’t know where it’s taking him, he doesn’t care, he just wishes he could take over again, but that part of his brain shuts him out immediately, pushing him back to the edges of the fence he built up.  _ Make sure it stays up,  _ it says,  _ make sure you don’t ruin everything.  _

The fragments of his disintegrating self fight it out for a long time, as Beacon Hills rushes out of the windows of his truck, and then, just as the need to survive takes over again, Theo sees it.

_ The zoo. Mykonos. People only feel one emotion at a time. Liam. _

_ Liam Liam Liam Liam Liam Liam. _

It’s a miracle he doesn’t fly out of his car as he hits the brake, car going close to a hundred mph.

vii.

The drive back is even harder, dread swelling up in his throat and blinding him, hands holding the wheel so tightly and taking turns so violently he thinks he’s going to crash before he can make it back to Beacon Hills.  _ To do what. _

Then his phone rings and he hits the brakes again, hitting his head against the wheel, pain flaring up and actually blinding him. He groans, loudly, as he fishes his phone out of his jeans side pocket and squints at the screen, pain slowly subsiding.

_ Scott _ .

He’s glad he stopped the car before retrieving his phone, because his body goes lax, boneless, his mind blanks, his heart stops and the world goes black for a minute as he runs all and any possible scenarios through his mind. 

Monroe ambushed them somehow. One of the surviving hunters slipped out of custody and attacked them. Nolan went crazy with grief and shot up the hospital. The Anuk-ite isn’t really dead. Liam. Liam. Liam.

He answers the call but doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything, just waits for Scott to hit him with the truth, whatever it might be. Then he’s going to… He doesn’t know (he knows).

“Theo,” is his heart even beating, is he even alive “I’m sorry if you’re… I don’t know where you are, actually, I just need you to…” he must be alive because he feels like killing Scott all over again for letting him go through agonizing pain every time he stutters and hesitates and doesn’t fucking spit it out. 

And if he’s hesitating then it must be over, or he’d tell Theo to come back immediately. Panic rises through him and then a sudden calm, like nothing matters anymore, and it’s deafening, so he almost misses it when Scott says “Please go back to the hospital. Liam, he…” 

_ Liam.  _

_ “What?”  _ he manages to rasp out, his throat filling with the jagged edges of some primal feeling. For a moment he thinks he’s shifted into a wolf, feels something roar, instinct washing everything else out. 

“No, he’s… nothing happened!” Scott clarifies, only now realizing what he must have put Theo through, sounding apologetic but so tired “Just go to him. I don’t know how…  _ Please  _ just go.”

“Fucking go, Theo,” that’s Malia’s voice. And that’s so much more than a truce.

Scott hangs up abruptly, or Malia does for him, like they’re afraid Theo might argue with them or like they’re offering him an out, not wanting to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, but both alternatives are rendered moot by Theo’s awareness finally coming back on.

The roar he thought he’d heard had been his car starting again. He’s been driving, phone still pressed against his ear and holding the wheel with one hand, since Scott’s said Liam’s name.

viii.

Dawn is nearly breaking when he finally stops the car and tumbles out, Beacon Hills breathing around him so quietly it feels like a ghost town, but then, stretching his hearing out, Theo feels the broken sound of Liam breathing, if he strains himself he can pick up his scent and…  _ Jesus _ .

He’s already up the stairs, brain barely keeping up with his body, not even processing his burning need but projecting it out into the world for everyone to see, to smell, to hear. It takes him maybe half of his life-force to compose himself, not wanting to just assault Liam with… this.

Some part of him wishes for another flight of stairs, but his feet are hitting the last step and he can already see, in the corner of his eye, Liam moving, turning to look at him, relief and pain and fear all mixed up, as Theo tries, for the umpteenth time tonight, to steel himself and put on his usual expression, heart hopefully regular. He feels like nothing works, like he’s already fucked it up, so he stops putting it off and finally,  _ finally  _ looks at Liam. 

Every feeling he’s ever felt, as a child, as a human, as a teen, as a chimera, as whatever he is when he’s standing in front of Liam, makes itself known again, dyed in new colours as Liam watches him and molds him into something new, changing him. _ Does he even know he’s doing this.  _

Theo wants to surge forward and touch him, kiss him - has he ever thought about kissing Liam or was it always a dream he’d let himself forget in the morning, his waking mind revolting against the idea - and  _ hold  _ him. 

Wants to bury himself in Liam’s arms and never resurface*. Nothing could be haunting him in there. He’d be safe.

ix.

Liam is holding his stupid black beanie, he notices, his mind looking for something simple, mundane, concrete to make up for the ocean of feelings rising up and turning his consciousness into a tiny island soon to be swallowed up.

“That’s mine,” Theo says, absently. 

He doesn’t follow the rest of their inane conversation as well as it would seem, judging from the answer he thinks, hopes, make it out of his mouth; he sees Liam cling to their fragile reality, irrevocably changing around them, just waiting for a spark, to be lit up and burn their old skins away. 

Fire envelops him while his hand rises up, fingers closing around something soft, something Liam is holding and giving back, and then something purer than fire -  _ Liam? -  _ forces his way through what feels like endless space and finally blasts everything down, holding onto Theo’s body and letting it shelter him like a sanctuary as he sobs and sobs and sobs.

Theo doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe. He lets Liam feel everything, tempted to wrap his arms around him and take his pain, but he feels like he’d steal something from him if he did. Some things you just need to feel. 

God if he knows.

x.

He tells Liam everything, but he can’t remember a word as the world shrinks and shrinks, his senses fixing on the impossibility, solid and warm and brimming with life, wrapped around his body. Liam doesn’t dissolve into smoke, doesn’t disappear as the sun softens the previously dark hall, neons still flickering above their heads. 

Silence covers them, Liam taking it all in again, quickly though, because his hands rise up to Theo’s face, cradling it, fingertips in his hair, a thumb brushing at his lips and then doing it again when Theo bites back a gasp. He does it again and this time Theo thinks he moans, but he doesn’t care, because Liam is looking at him like  _ that.  _

And he can’t describe it, not this. 

His next words feels like a punch and a promise and, this time, the memory of a distant morning -- the first morning in a long long time, much like this one in fact -- Theo is sure he doesn’t want to break it. Never will.

“If I kiss you now, do you promise to not be an asshole?”  _ and fuck off when it starts freaking you out. _

But Theo’s an asshole, so he doesn’t answer and leans forwards, barely an inch, lips grazing Liam’s, eyes still open, not a real kiss, because after all he’s not a  _ complete  _ asshole, and he waits for Liam to surge into him and make good of that promise. It feels like he’s issuing a challenge and, not surprisingly, Liam’s eyes almost flare up.

When he does make good of his promise, Theo’s eyes slip closed and his lips open, eyelids seared by the rising sun and his entire body lighting up, like Liam’s hands, one of them slipping under his shirt, he registers with a jolt and another moan, are managing to touch him all over all at once, looking for any obstacle, wall, fence and bringing them all down. 

Wherever he touches, it leaves something else behind, making Theo’s wasteland bloom into something else. 

New. 

Hopeful.

The rest is blissful silence.

**Author's Note:**

> *Shakespeare, Pericles V, 3:  
> This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness  
> Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well,  
> That on the touching of her lips I may  
> Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried  
> A second time within these arms.
> 
> And you could ask now and then on my deathbed and I'd still tell you this is the most beautiful line in all of literature. Apparently I love these two so much my mind literally forced me to somehow sneak it into this fic. It wasn't even that hard, honestly.
> 
> Anyway! I hope you managed to reach the end and if you did... thank you. So much. As always, kudos, bookmarks or comments are all appreciated.


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